Conquer Yourself First

by Jay and Glenda

If you conquer yourself first, you will find that all your other difficulties in life will fall into place. To Conquer Each New Day starts with conquering yourself. When things are really bad and you have lost everything, you have two choices: to give up and call it quits, or you can shake off the dust from your feet and start anew.

If you decide to give up and quit, you will never again accomplish much of anything else. Some of you may have minor things to deal with, while others have things that are more major. I know that some of you have a lot of pain and sorrow to deal with as well as the practical matter of trying to put one foot in front of the other. Pain and sorrow can devastate you… or it can… make you much stronger. It is your choice!

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.” ~Buddha

We all face obstacles every single day of our lives. We have to choose how to handle those obstacles. Are we going to let them defeat us? Do we see them as impossible hurdles or as opportunities? If we allow ourselves to become discouraged to the point where we quit trying, then nothing will ever be accomplished. Sometimes, you need to try and do things in a slightly different way. Sometimes, you just need to keep going and making headway.

In those times that you are hurting, you need to reach out and help someone else. There is always someone out there who is worse off than you and the hurt you feel. How can you help someone else when you are in such a fix yourself? Just do what you can… Give a helping hand. Say a kind word. Give some of what you have to make someone else’s life better. If you do this earnestly from your heart, you will usually find that your own problems are not so bad after all. You can find a way to overcome that hurdle. Your hurdle will seem more like just a bump in the road instead of a huge mountain for you to overcome. It may still be difficult, but it is not impossible. You may have to make a small detour or get some help. We are not always meant to do everything on our own.

Okay, you may say, “all that is well and good, but you don’t know what I am dealing with today”. We say, “you also don’t know what we are dealing with either.” True, ours might not be that bad… but you don’t know that. You don’t know what the next person in line at the market is dealing with either. They could have on a smile just trying to overcome a hidden sorrow. Just like everyone else, We too, have days when we are down. We can get discouraged just like anyone else. However, we refuse to allow ourselves to be stuck down there in that pit. We all have the gift of choice! Believe it or not, some people actually enjoy their misery and adamantly refuse any help! We definitely are not that way.

You can choose to wallow in your self-doubts, your faults, failings, and your sad circumstances in life. That is up to you, but will it make you any happier? If you answer “no”, then pull yourself together and do something positive about it.

At times, you just have to accept that your circumstances are what they are. They may or may not get any better. Have you read Corrie Ten Boom’s book on The Hiding Place? Corrie and her family were thrown into the German concentration camps for helping to hide Jewish people from the Nazi soldiers. Corrie’s father and beloved sister died there. Corrie was scheduled to go into the gas chamber as well but because of an error in the paperwork, she was spared. Later, she was released from that prison and lived to tell about it’s horrors.

The only thing that Corrie had any control over was her attitude and her power of choice. She chose to stay strong mentally and emotionally in order to help as many people as she could. She had a very strong faith and chose to thank God and depend on Him each new day of her life.

Would you have given up and decided that life is not really worth living? There are people in the world, even now, who are going through some terrible times. They still can choose to give up, give in, and quit fighting for their lives and possibly die. On the other hand, they can choose to fight for the lives they have, or fight for a better life for themselves and others by enduring their difficulties until they have been overcome. It is up to you. You can decide what your choice will be.

“In order to conquer, what we need is to dare, still to dare, and always to dare.” ~Georges Jacques Danton

Someone out there needs your help. It can be just a caring smile, or a heartfelt kind word. Someone needs to be encouraged. Someone is going through something that you have just been through yourself. No, you may not know who they are, but they are people just like you and me and they are still there in need of help. You can help them… But, are you willing to extend a helping hand? It is your call – It is your choice!

“It’s our own small voice within that is our oppressor; it says we are not worthy and not powerful enough. Our limited beliefs are the real foes we need to fight and conquer. ” ~Yehuda Berg

So, in closing, my friends, we would like to bring to your attention that life is actually a big circle that we all journey upon. Just as we grow from childhood into adulthood, we then get to grow old, only to then act and behave as children in need of all kinds of help/care/attention in our old age! Giving of yourself to help others, regardless of how and how much, will also run a full circle and come back home to benefit us when we so desperately need it and pray for it! He works in mysterious ways, doesn’t He?

We hope that you too will conquer yourself first in order to conquer each new day of your life. We welcome your comments and inspirational stories.

The theme and name of this site is Conquer Each New Day. Some days are easier than others but we always start fresh every morning. Whatever it is that you must conquer this day we truly hope that you have the courage to push forward and believe in yourself. Remember that if you think you can't, then you can't. But if you think you can, yes, you really can. Push forward and Conquer your day. Take action!